


Coercion

by dianekepler



Series: Perquisitum [3]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Angst, Arranged Marriage, BoS-centric, Canon Divergence, Canon Typical Violence, Dirty Talk, Feels, Female Ejaculation, Het and Slash, Infidelity, Love/Hate, Manipulation, Marriage, Masturbation, Maxson's POV, Multi, Pregnancy, Rough Sex, Sarcasm, big egos, blind betrayal, cohesion universe, lies -- so many lies, not really sorry for torturing Arthur, power struggles, smut-driven plot, the coat hath returned, the irony will be epic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-17
Updated: 2017-11-23
Packaged: 2018-11-01 17:16:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 17,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10926402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dianekepler/pseuds/dianekepler
Summary: Elder Maxson finds the Brotherhood of Steel's long-held traditions beginning to turn on him, taking him places he never knew existed and does not wish to go. And there's this matter of the vault dweller. Can she be trusted?





	1. Chapter 1

With every turn towards my panoramic view of the Commonwealth, one corner of that very pivotal letter comes into view. I keep feeling the urge to either tuck it completely into the right front pocket of my coat or unfold and reread it, though there is little point. I memorized every detail of the communiqué before retiring to the command deck and that was hours ago.

First to engage my attention was the Brotherhood’s winged sword and gears pressed into a resin both harder and glossier than wax. How breaking the seal left the emblem split, symbolically, into halves. How the message, in ruler-straight lines and a bold, slanted script, conveyed offers and more than one veiled demand. 

Here, in the deepest hours of the night, I am weighing them. Judging what will best serve our interests now and, as I wear out my boots pacing the metal deck, in the future.

My senior officers don’t know every detail, so this knock on the reinforced door separating me from the rest of the ship could be any of them. It’s far from a civilized time for interviews, but I can appreciate that they might also be losing sleep, so I take up my usual position near the dust-streaked bank of windows. Give my usual command.

“Come.” 

Before me stands Reese Logan, former vault-dweller, sometime mercenary, would-be folk hero, perhaps. The barely-disciplined relic of a failed civilization with a grudge against the Institute that would be more useful if it matched her degree of loyalty. And yes, Brotherhood knight, though that may not be true for much longer.   

Interesting that she would know to find me here. Then again, given her recent exploits, very little about this woman surprises me anymore. 

“Elder, do you have a moment? LC Kells asked me to speak with you.”

I wear a blank expression, hands clasped behind my hips. “Secure the door.”

She carries out the order and snaps into an uncharacteristically crisp salute once she’s closed the distance between us. Logan even stands at attention, a position she doesn’t assume naturally or often.

“Any reason you’re here at this hour?”

“Just got off watch, sir.”

The bell for shift change sounded anywhere from ten to thirty minutes ago. Either her relief was late or she was standing outside, working out how to phrase the request that is coming. 

Let’s see how she handles a direct strike.

“Lancer Captain Kells says you wish to take leave.” 

I watch for tells, but the knight’s features, barely touched by the hell our world has become, betray little of what is going on behind them. 

“Not leave, _per se_. It’s to follow another lead, sir.”

“Without Danse, I hear.”

“Yes, sir. He said he’d be okay with it if I got clearance.”

The care with which she’s stepping around this is almost laughable. “No doubt you’ll be able to call on your militia or mercenary friends instead.”

A widening of impossibly full lashes indicates a direct hit. What’s the matter, General? Did you think I was unaware of your standing among these ragtag militants you keep trying to knit together on your journeys here and there? Danse reports everything and there are others with eyes on both of you. I’ve made sure of it. 

“So allow me to summarize. You’re taking on an essential mission, which will lead directly to finding the Institute.”

“Yes, sir.”

“The nature of which you can’t reveal to Kells or myself.”

“That’s right, sir.”

Logan’s formality is such a contrast to how she normally behaves. Unnerving Quinlan with obscure musical references, nicknaming her power armor. I’ve read Malory and the reference is plain. The roll of her hips as she saunters around the Prydwen is at odds with her military record. A distinguished service medal during the annexation of Canada and, in the Alaskan theater, a jump-rank promotion to staff sergeant. Then an honorable discharge, strangely abrupt. 

Yes, I accessed your records, Knight, long before you accessed mine. That is, before you hacked into files containing highly personal information and then threw it in my face that night on the foredeck.

My tone stays even, of course. Stern, but not as if any of this affects me. “You are opting to leave behind your sponsor, who is one of the best soldiers on this tour.”

“Yes, sir.” 

When you pressed your lips, your body against mine. Asking why I’d summoned no one to attend me after you had. Implying there was anything I could want from Reese Logan beyond her loyalty and my due.

“Then you’re cleared. Provided,” here I pause to savor her look of disbelief, “that you leave all Brotherhood property on the Prydwen, including your tags. I don’t want you identified if you’re taken.”

And there it is, the pregnant pause I’ve been waiting for.

“Something you wish to say, Knight?”

Tread carefully, Logan. Those kisses, that night’s heat between your legs, did more than a thousand accusations to show your interest in something beyond duty. And while I’ve considered, even been tempted by the idea, there can be nothing between us unless you’re the military asset Danse believes you to be. So follow your so-called leads, General. Demonstrate. 

Meanwhile, keep avoiding my eyes, stay silent, and be dismissed.  

Of course the woman does as no one expects, in a voice that is actually hesitant.

“Sir, I’d like to apologize. For the other night.”  Her posture changes as if she is deeply uncomfortable. 

“Go on.”

“I’m just … I’m sorry.”  

“I’m curious to know what for.”

Because it shouldn’t have to be explained to some upstart in straight out of a vault why the records of who attends to an Elder’s physical needs are kept sealed. Why any favor towards her was more consideration than interest on my part. 

The breath she draws fills Logan out, from her vitals to the unruly cloud of her hair. 

“I’m not trying to cover my ass, sir, or make you change your mind. I just apologize for being less than you expected.” 

Around us is the steady thrum of the ship’s engines. Its heartbeat. The Prydwen bears witness to this seemingly genuine apology, this acknowledgement that Logan’s future here is controlled not by Danse or even Kells, but by me. 

“Actually, you may have been more.” 

Her ability to meet my eyes has returned. Interesting. 

So then yes, Knight Logan, your admission that my opinion matters earns you a chance to hear that, in some ways, I have never seen your equal. Your amalgam of drive and irreverence is completely new to me, your list of skills, seemingly endless. And though I would never let on, there should be regulations against what you do to a power armor interface suit. What you are, in fact, doing now. Standing there with your luminous skin and the collar of that same suit unbuckled, as if inviting me. 

“It turns out I may have failed to understand some things that are more … explicit now.” 

I don’t stress any syllables. The down and up sweep of my eyes along her torso and legs serve to carry the meaning. We are alone here and, more importantly, no one knows.

“It strikes me we could use this moment as an opportunity. Should you wish.” 

Logan’s eyes seem to deepen. She takes the hand I extend, confirming yes, she’s of the same mind. Her knuckles are warm under my stroking thumb. It sets us both up for the tongue I curl into her, the little nips and niceties we share before the kissing grows as fevered as it was the other night. Until our blood runs so hot that I’m tossing my coat recklessly onto the metal plates of the deck and lifting her bodily so I can spread her out on top of it.  

She is eager. Begins stripping me the moment her dark skin is laid fully bare. And who am I to refuse the way her lips map my body, clever licks seeking to test every nerve ending, for what, I couldn’t begin to guess. It’s as if she’s trying to unman me with that mouth, have me paint the inside of my suit a slick white when there are so many better canvases. One in particular I haven’t explored yet. But I will. Before we’re done here, I’ll know every part of this knight so intimately she’ll be thanking me for it.  

I’m still half dressed when I invert Logan. Her shoulders rest on my knees, ass supported by my chest, fleecy hair a fine contrast to the battlecoat’s creamy lining. My lips explore her second set, my tongue opening and tracing that luscious valley, before I thrust it firmly inside. She arches. Her brows knit in that look of sweet distress I’ve been wanting to see on her face again for weeks now. Her hands work to find purchase on the straps and buckles at my thighs, but it doesn’t matter. I can hold her this way for as long as it takes. 

Broad-tongued laps are the thing she most seems to enjoy, at first. Shaking my head, as if refusing touches more of her, gets her bucking up into my mouth. But her eyes stay on mine. Perfect. I vowed years ago that no one attending me would ever lack for pleasure or think it was a chore. As far as I know, no one has.  

My focus zeroes in on that inevitable knot of pleasure and, once it’s time, I suckle gently, then with more force. Soon her climax rushes up to greet me with an impressive array of moans and sighs. They ratchet up the tension in my belly, get my cock straining harder against its confines. 

As she calms and quiets I set her back down. Take a moment to wipe her out of my beard with an undershirt we’ve discarded. I have continued plans for Logan and hold her in place when she tries to sit up. She’s too boneless to offer any real resistance anyway, though not as completely shattered as she’ll be later on. Consider it a gift, General. A memory or two for cold nights. 

Yet accepting what is offered doesn’t seem to be in Logan’s nature. Once I’m naked, she seems to want to compete for who can be most arousing. It irritates me. The answer, of course, is to pin her wrists and tease her to the edge of madness. Fit my hardest part to her softest and push over and over again, though not claiming her, not yet.  

I taunt her. “Want something?”.

Logan is drenched. It’s the easiest thing in the world to allow myself to catch, pull back, glide forward. To slip, and prod and stimulate. Minor shifts that add up to more frustration than would fit inside a vertibird and though my excitement grows, I can still hold it together.

Her words land like open-handed blows. “Just fuck me.”

“You know better than that.” 

“Fuck me, sir.” Logan is bright paint over a hot core. A mini-nuke made human.  

A corner of my mouth lifts. “If you’re good.”

“Aren’t we past that?” she grinds out, while down below still seeking. 

“We’re never past respect, Knight. It’s time you learned that.” I’m at her entrance. A little less pressure, a little more, depending on how she squirms. My full weight isn’t on her until I bring that rebellious chin around with my other hand. She will look me in the face for this. 

“So ask nicely. Unless you’d rather beg.” 

Kisses lower her resistance. But no matter how eagerly those thick lips slide across mine, no matter the hisses and moans, Logan won’t see reason. A sudden need to end this flares hot.     

“You can give in,” I tell her. “There’s no one else here to see.”

“Thought threesomes were your thing,” she all but sneers. 

As if I had Logan attend me in pairs with Haylen and then with Danse for anything but my safety.  General, are you that naïve? And is this so much to ask, a little obedience before I send you on your way?

Besides, I have trump card. “No one’s here to make you jealous.”

My hand stroking her silky cheek, perfect in the moonlight, is close to cover her mouth as we hit ground zero. Logan’s eyes again darken and her next thrust is almost enough to seat me. Now it’s as if the knight never apologized at all. What good are words when she keeps denying herself? Denying me? 

“You must have looked hard to access those records.” I murmur as her slick body moves despite whatever she might be feeling. “I thought, what would drive such a beautiful relic care who I had or hadn’t fucked —” another pulse of my hips, “since I’d had her.”

Logan’s ire at having been so obvious shows. In fact, she’s beginning read like a well-thumbed Codex. Her struggles become more urgent. She may know I can keep her here a long, long time.  

“So give in,” I trace bee-stung lips with two sensitive fingers, “and ask.”

“Please,” she says.  

“Better. Although we should work,” I growl, “on that tone. Say it again.”

“Please,” she groans. “Fuck ….”

“Good enough.”

I ram her, half-burying myself in slick heat. But she’s tense and makes it worse by jerking greedily up into me. 

“ _Relax_ ,” I order. 

We have to wait with thrumming hearts and breath mingling. 

With slower strokes, I test. When there’s more give she coos into my ear. The feeling is incredible. This silk, these moments of just-tight-enough. Even more potent is her surrender. It’s in her clasping and the hooking of her legs around mine. It’s in the heat in my guts curls out to cup my balls and draw them in tight. But I’ll last until she’s blind and breathless. Pushing. Driving us higher as I play my private game of not-too-little, not-too-much. Logan still tries for the upper hand, but I stay in control.

But, as I well know, this woman never does what anyone expects.  

Her second climax isn’t a storm, it’s a tempest. We lose friction and, surprised, draw back to see waves of fulfillment escape  her with every pulse of those velvet walls. I have to swallow. Steady my spinning brain. Of course I’ve heard rumors. Soldiers pad the truth like it’s a moral obligation and myths about women who can do this are as common as the one about the deathclaw. 

Although this one’s apparently true. 

I’m left staring, lusting even more. Because it changes her. There is a softness to Knight Logan now. As I keep moving, she touches me in ways I am not prepared for. Her praise, the way she urges me. _Don’t stop. Please don’t stop._ A longing is in her eyes. In her voice. Even in how she starts to feel less like something to claim than a warm embrace.  

“Yes. You’re — yes.” My voice holds a raw, suffocating hunger. 

“Need you to come inside me, Arthur, please ….”

And there is no resistance left. 

I push home one last time with my breath caught. Everything is on fire. My spine. My blood. There’s a feeling in my chest as if something’s rattled loose and from the waist down I’m only giving, ebbing, empty. And then calm. A single moment when the universe stills and I don’t have to worry or plan or fight. 

I’d chase this feeling twice as hard if it only lasted longer.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Raiven_Raine](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Raiven_Raine/), thank you so much for your help with this chapter and ironing out the details in general. In the General? Wait, that came out wrong.


	2. Chapter 2

Dawn breaks across the ocean in a swath of flame. I watch this advent, this red-sky-morning from the Prydwen’s fantail until sun flares too bright and the view becomes impossible to stand. 

Sea breezes curl around me. Sweat from a predawn round of calisthenics doesn’t linger the way it did on the command deck, the way Logan’s scent still does. It’s on my skin. On the shearling collar of a very complicit coat I’ve spread on some crates nearby. Behind closed eyes I see her cheek pressed to its fleecy lining. The sleeve she hung onto at critical moments. What her voice and body betrayed at the end. 

Yet as sweet as that victory was, as tempting as it might be to indulge Logan’s desires and secure her loyalty, there are others to think of. Many are under my command. Though my brothers and sisters would follow me to hell and back, I don’t dare abuse this trust by leading them right to the gates.

Other potential critics will arrive soon and they, before anyone, could well see Knight Logan as an outsider, a dangerous artifact who treats with failed militia, brawlers, and even, it’s rumored, the abominations we do our level best to erase. They wouldn’t be far off to conclude that she will use anyone, no matter how unsavory, in the search for her missing son. 

It’s true. A part of me would feel relieved if she somehow lost her way among them. 

I untie sleeves from around my waist and shrug back into them before collecting my coat with a mental note to take a stiff brush to it later. 0550 has me showered and at my terminal, issuing orders to pull recon teams from the field, expand the security perimeter, and put the jetliner we have been equipping as a field hospital to new use. The initiates’ barracks are to be scrubbed down as well, to the bare floorboards if necessary. They’ll bivouac in the parking structure until we can erect something more suitable. 

Quinlan finishes his summary of our newest assets by midmorning. Afterwards, Kells and I go over the latest maps and their active combat zones. I inspect Teagan’s holdings, order Gavil to prepare for the same, and spend the intervening hours reviewing every contact, every deployment, every piece of tech held both here and at the Citadel. No detail of our strengths or setbacks was opaque to me before, but now everything is at tongue-tip, needing only the appropriate moment to deliver into waiting ears.

By late afternoon, I have word that our vertibirds are at the rendezvous point. First contact has been made. 

A descent to oversee the preparations triggers another rush of activity. Some look to my bearing for clues as to what it all means. I stay outwardly calm, of course, conferring with Brandis about minor details, but mainly leaving the base’s reorganization to proceed according to his exacting standards. The new arrivals can’t be met with anything less than perfection. I even have the barber give me a touch-up once I’m back aboard. 

The sky above the ruined pre-war city blushes twilit by the time Paladin Danse and the guests he is escorting arrive on the command deck, where Kells, Quinlan, and I are arrayed.

“Elder Maxson.” Danse resonant voice a good fit for this introduction. “May I present to you a special envoy of the Lost Hills chapter of the Brotherhood of Steel.” 

“ _Ad victoriam_ ,” they say, as one. 

I see upright postures. Smooth, open faces, their uniforms matched and in good repair. They listen as closely to my welcoming speech as would my own recruits. Both Danse and the High Council’s letter confirm that these are no blank-eyed worshippers of the Maxson legacy. This is a special task force, the elite of the West, sent to improve our chances against the Institute as they learn firsthand the secrets of manned flight. 

Introductions are made. There is Senior Paladin Alanna Jarvis, as solid and dependable-looking as Star Paladin Cross was in her time. Paladin Takeshi Kano, with quick eyes that seem to miss nothing. High Scribe Micah Tanner, looking unusually young for his post, and Journeyman Scribe Juneau Vargas, related to both the Citadel’s Paladin and Berkeley’s Elder.

She is attractive enough to be the one mentioned in the message carried by the radio-heralded, sword-and-gears emblazoned drone that found us yesterday afternoon. 

I’ve made arrangements for the eight of us to take a meal here on the command deck. The amenities are sparse, but I am confident our guests will understand. We are at war. And although their timing could have been better, this meeting could prove highly advantageous if their offers are sincere.

I raise a toast. “To a partnership forged in steel. May we achieve victory by deserving it.”

The hear-hears go around and we start on the brahmin steaks and other simple foods they are likely to find familiar. I ask Senior Paladin Jarvis, seated to my right, about the rest of her party still on the ground. 

“Your brothers and sisters have been well-served?”

Of course, I already know the answer. Danse’s ’s reputation for taking care of anyone in his charge is one reason I appointed him as our main liaison. I can rest assured that the West Coast detachment has been refreshed, quartered, and allowed time to themselves before this initial meeting.

Jarvis’s tone is self-assured yet warm, her grey eyes looking out of a face that, though still young, already bears the tan and creases of years in the field. “They are quite comfortable. We thank you, Elder, for your hospitality.”

As the discussion spools out, I learn how their group of twenty men and women made it here in in five heavily-armored transports in just under a week. Fusion cores and night driving let them travel almost continuously. They were attacked only twice and each incursion was put down in under an hour. 

“The so-called Jet Road was an asset,” Jarvis adds. “Trading posts along the route are invested in keeping the peace.” 

“Was it a difficult journey from Chicago?” Kells asks from the other end of the table.

“No more difficult than staying there,” remarks Tanner, with a long-suffering look. 

A pause from Jarvis with the clink of dinnerware the only sound.  “Our brothers and sisters in the midwest have developed some … unusual customs. You will have my report. I would also request one of your comms officers be made available to transmit it to Western High Command.” 

“Of course.” She receives my nod with an acknowledging bow of her head. “But in answer to LC Kells’ question, Paladin Kano?”

He leans forward from a position two places farther down. “With pleasure.”

Kano easily fields Kells' and Danse’s questions about the types of raiders and levels of supermutant activity between here and our outpost on the Great Lakes. I approve of Jarvis showcasing her subordinate’s knowledge. She also finds ways to let Tanner and Vargas shine. He, despite the odd choice of wearing his blond hair long and in a ponytail, hopes to use the West’s cutting-edge physics and materials science to understand and perhaps improve on our vertibirds. She is a historian and archivist of Quinlan’s order. 

My proctor seems equally taken with both scribes, quizzing them on matters too abstract for dinner until Kells clears his throat and Quinlan remembers himself.

“Are you named for the city?” he asks, looking to Scribe Vargas for a shift to broader topics. 

“For the battle.” Tanner fires off.

It is the work of a moment for Kano to silence Tanner with a look. But the damage is done. He’s exposed himself as their Rothchild: brilliant, educated. and happy to cut someone down over a technicality. And it is. Juneau was no Anchorage, not in numbers, not in complexity of tactics, not in historical significance. I notice Vargas, at least, has the grace to look uncomfortable. 

“It’s a tradition on my mother’s side,” she explains. “I have twin cousins named Oakland and Portland.” 

Her graceful recovery puts the proctor at ease. The conversation shifts to the west’s ongoing struggle with the NCR. How vertibird technology could end it once and for all. 

“We’ll reciprocate, of course,” Jarvis puts in, “starting with a comms upgrade. The radio components we brought could dampen if not eliminate radstorm interference.”

So their dispatch said. Still, I can’t help but wonder how much of the West’s support will be _quid pro quo_. Will Jarvis be as eager to please if I have her technology dismantled and checked for hidden functions? Demand full schematics of whatever tech they have on hand before delivering our own? 

Or what if I chose to reject their offer to sire and raise children with the very eligible woman they’ve brought to my table?

More than once, I allow my gaze to sweep over Vargas without resting on her. She is tall, and fine-boned, roughly my age, with milky skin and hair the color of old oak. She wears it twisted into narrow plaits that gather the rest up off her neck, in a style that leans away from fussy and towards intriguing, in a possible invitation to see how it all comes apart. 

They’ve been judicious enough to seat her between Quinlan and Kells, within sight, but not within speaking distance unless everyone present can hear. Over the conversation at my end of the table, I hear how she engages in the other one further down, neither seeking or avoiding attention. Her voice is not the low and pleasant contralto of someone such as Knight Logan, but higher and with better diction. It is the voice of a woman who would need little effort to be heard in a crowded room, or above the general noise of the Citadel’s courtyard on an average afternoon.

Whether this makes her more suitable as a wife and mother is impossible to say. 


	3. Chapter 3

Too much of my time these days is spent at my terminal navigating seas of green on black. It’s ironic. Despite the westerners’ plans to help us against the Institute, my days are now longer than before they arrived. 

Standing and popping my neck just highlights the tightness in my calves, something three or four circuits of the table in my quarters helps but doesn’t cure. Worse is the gritty feeling in my right shoulder, where old wounds I tried to ignore for the sake of appearances were stimmed too late.

Sitting straight with fingers joined behind my head seems best for now. It lets me close my eyes and, for a moment, entertain thoughts of Evans, the lancer who attended me the other night. I remember his eyes and the inviting way he bit his underlip as worthwhile distractions. The way he stripped. Every fluid motion showing how he enjoyed showing off. I played into that. Had him spread out on the lounger in my quarters as I sat nearby and gave instructions on exactly how to prepare. Meanwhile, I answered his performance with one of my own, stroking myself while staying just out of reach.

At the critical moment, I slung one of his calves over the lounger’s backrest and bent back his other knee so I could sink in unobstructed. Evans had a sheen of sweat to him almost from the very first and it made the lancer that much more appealing. I picked up the pace to make sure the glow lasted. His toned stomach tightened and released as Evans, panting, met my efforts, urging me to take things faster. But slow let me appreciate how he gripped me. It let me drag calmly out of him then slam home until his hips were moving in an almost unconscious dance, to say nothing of his inner muscles. The feeling as I bore down —

A knock interrupts the reverie. Suddenly, I’m reminded of an antic from an old holovid, a cane yanking an actor offstage. 

“Come,” I say, with a glance at the chronometer on my terminal. If it’s this late already it must be …

Danse, with a stack of the westerners’ reports. Their terminals use different protocols than ours. Until the scribes can integrate the two systems, most of their reports come type- or even handwritten. It’s embarrassing, although less so than the time it takes to compose myself. Memories of my last evening with Danse, little over two weeks ago, are still fresh. 

“Elder.” His voice holds an edge of fatigue. As the primary liaison between us and our guests, his days are no doubt as long as mine. 

“Paladin,” I say with a nod at one of the chairs. Sliding mine over once Danse’s line of sight is broken solves a potential breach of decorum. “What have you heard about C.I.T.?”

“There’s nothing new.” Danse passes a careful hand up to scratch the back of his neck. Unusual, since he isn’t one to fidget. “A few raiders are scouting, but no mutants since the site was cleared.”

“Any signals?” Paladin Kano has taken a mixed detachment of local and western personnel to find more of the energy readings first noted by recon squad Gladius. Their equipment is no improvement on ours, so I doubt they’ll add to what we have done, however it’s a chance for our people to see how Kano runs his ops.

“A few strong and many weaker pulses, centered on C.I.T., as we’ve seen.” 

“New intel would be welcome. I’d hate to tell Kano I told him so.” 

“You wouldn’t.” Danse says with what could be a hint of a smile. The paladin isn’t as easy to read since we were last here together with Logan. This is perhaps deliberate on his part. Danse could be making up for bending his long-standing rule of staying out of my personal life. 

“Depending on how long Kano draws this out, I might. What’s next?”

Danse continues reeling off his top five, as he has every evening since the westerners arrived. “Comms or construction, your choice.”

When the need to move my bad shoulder becomes too great, I roll it again. But that only triggers a flare-up of the dull ache, vertically, like a mole rat has been chewing inner edge of my shoulder blade. It might be time to give in and take the Med-X, with addictol to chase it if necessary. 

“Comms first.”

“Star Paladin Casdin has our scribes working extra shifts. They are embedding the codes you had Proctor Quinlan prepare. Proctor Ingram tells me a more detailed report will be delivered by 0800 tomorrow.” 

I nod. Ever since Jarvis made good on her offer of a communications upgrade, we have been monitoring all transmissions to and from the Citadel to see that not only is everything getting through, but nothing is being added. Anything less and we’d be fools.

“As expected. Continue.”

“The western scribes are asking if their plans for a hangar have been approved.”

I can feel my expression shifting into the one my subordinates tend to see. “I ran this by Kells and he agrees that we have neither the resources nor the time to build a second Adams. Tell them to scale back their plans by at least a third. What else do we have?”

“Knight Logan was spotted this afternoon by a sniper at the C.I.T. encampment. Civilian dress, heavy armor. She had the Mr. Handy with her. It looks like a few Mr. Gutsy parts have been added on. Didn’t approach our position. From the frequency of Pip-Boy checks it seemed as if she was looking for something. The last part of the report isn’t reliable. It says that he had her centered in his crosshairs when she vanished.”

No human companions. Looking for something. I tap my lip and contemplate the dull ceiling above us, wondering what it means. “Send someone to trade places with whoever that was. Sounds like fatigue. What’s your last item?”

“Team 85-Romeo.”

Not the news I wanted to hear. 

I hold out a hand in the way Danse has probably come to expect. He lays a set of blackened holotags into it, letting the ball chain down slowly so everything stays contained. I have Logan’s as well. They are in my desk drawer until such time as she either returns to take up Brotherhood identifiers or I declare her MIA, although not officially. No one who hasn’t taken the Oath is recorded in the Scrolls. 

These tags don’t chill me through the leather of my glove. Instead, their cold weight touches me further in. “Initiate Todd?”

“Still critical.”

Three members of 85-Romeo went down with their bird under heavy fire. Mutants. Armed with rocket launchers. Todd was somehow thrown clear. She lay torn and broken in the branches of a tree as those filthy abominations dismembered her brothers and sisters, dividing the gore among the repulsive sacks they made. Todd was barely coherent when the recovery team brought her back. 

When I last checked, the initiate was heavily sedated, out of Cade’s infirmary and under close supervision in a corner of the airport we reserve for such cases. She won’t last. The vacant look in her eyes is one I’ve seen too often. 

Danse stays respectfully silent as I shift the metal plates around with a thumb. I trace identifiers, remembering what I knew of these brave men and women as the ache in my chest grows. As a younger man, I saw these losses as inevitable. Now, with every casualty, I lie awake wondering what intelligence, what change in plans could have taken them out of harm’s way. 

“Will you stay for a drink?” I say at last. 

He looks away, perhaps at the flag on the wall behind me. “I — yes,” he blurts. This is new. Danse isn’t one to switch gears mid-sentence.

I take my time cleaning glasses, an old tactic. Danse pointedly avoids my gaze and then, once he notices me watching, pointedly doesn’t. I may not be able to pinpoint his feelings at the moment, but one reason I trust this man so completely is that he may be the worst liar on either side of the Citadel’s walls. 

I pour us two-fingered shots. Danse says nothing beyond some innocuous comments about the westerners settling in. 

“That reminds me.” I pause, holding a sip in my mouth before going on. “Did you ask if Scribe Vargas could be spared to assist Proctor Quinlan?” 

A weighty sort of pause precedes the answer. “They say she can’t, sir.”

We sit in thrumming silence, cut by voices in the corridor and boots on the ladder to the command deck. “That’s unexpected.” 

“I agree.”

Another moment draws itself out. I feel a perverse need to stay quiet, but there’s no need to make my most loyal supporter squirm. In any case, I have cause to regret thinking that. It leads me to imagining Danse in Evans’ place and now is definitely not the time. 

“The West is acting at cross purposes to their intentions.” My shoulder nags at me and I roll it again. “Or am I wrong?”

“We … could have a misunderstanding.”

“How so?” 

“Word is out,” Danse coughs into his hand. A dry little ghost of a sound. “That you sent for someone … recently.”

I’m now focused in on Danse, hyperaware. Every scar on his face stands out bold relief as I attempt to read his expression and he attempts to hide it. Then it builds. I can feel the anger in my throat. In the nails digging into my palms. 

“Quinlan guaranteed he secured those files.”

“He did, I checked again just now. But there’s been talk. On our side.” 

Of course. Ever since Knight Logan attended me, the usual suite of rumors about who was in favor grew wings. The second time they achieved VTOL, buzzing all over the airport and into the field. Both Kells and Cade had found it necessary to speak with me at different times. Absurd. As if I wasn’t aware of the risks to our mission and to my personal safety. It was the reason I’d paired Logan with Haylen, and then with Danse, in the first place. 

“I explained that sending for Lancer Evans was no sign of disrespect.” His brown eyes meet mine for the briefest of moments. 

I inhale to the count of five. Taking this out on Danse is no solution, although if I am correct about where this conversation is headed, our guests are grossly overstepping their bounds.

My expression has hardened into a scowl. Not for the paladin. Perhaps for no one. But I can feel as much as see Danse reading it, deciding how to proceed now that it’s clear the westerners are against us. 

Years ago, Knight Danse asked leave from attending me. But a few weeks ago, he put those feelings aside. He must have seen it, how between the two of us could involve Logan without compromising tradition by issuing a formal summons. Bring her into the fold, as it were. Because attending, for all of its possible misuses, is no idle practice. It cements loyalties. It helps ensure those under my command feel recognized, even understood. Casting a wide net assures competition for imagined favors is minimal, in fact I make it a point of not requesting multiple favors of any one person. Avoid attachment. The only useful thing my predecessor ever taught me. 

“I made it clear that this is our way.” Danse looks suitably embarrassed. “And we understood it was also theirs. But their practice is different, they wouldn’t say how.” 

“Suffice it to say, your explanation wasn’t enough.”

“Yes, sir.”

I don’t bother telling Danse to drop the formality. It’s his way of showing respect in the face of borderline insolence from those who should know better. 

“So,” I rest my jaw in the hammock of a forefinger and thumb. My gaze drifts to that spot on the doorframe where two rivets are unevenly spaced, an imperfection I noticed years ago. “Considering whether I care to raise children with a stranger takes precedence over keeping a clear head in the field.”

It’s as much a question as ‘synths are abominations’ is open to debate.

Earth-warm eyes meet mine for a second. Then Danse seems to pivot on a cap. “You read Jarvis’s report on Chicago?”

I did. Letting wastelanders train as initiates if they bear children for the officers seems like a disaster in the making. The practice has every hallmark of a possible abuse of power, not to mention future problems from skewed gender ratios. 

Danse’s point isn’t lost on me. Lost Hills thinks its ways are best, just as we do, although their meddling doesn’t sit well, this push to have me consider Scribe Vargas without the care of my subordinates, regardless of how long such consideration takes. My palms itch. I resist the urge to rub fingers against them or, over the dull throb of the Prydwen’s engines, harden them into fists. 

The paladin knows it’s a tell. I know he knows. I drum my fingers on the table anyway. 

Then I open my throat to chase this sudden bitterness with what little is left my tumbler. It comes down on the table with a clack.

“I’ll play along,” I say at last.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is no penis imagery in this chapter. I repeat, we are go for no cocks, symbolic or real.

“This is LTC. All stations verify readiness for countdown.”

Our steel platform, part of the newly expanded security perimeter, is crowded on this hot, airless morning. The audience has grown beyond those strictly needing to be here. Teagan, for example, although it would have been heartless to exclude the man after he practically got down on his knees for permission to attend. More than once I’ve wondered if there’s any basis to those rumors about our quartermaster putting scavenged issues of _Guns & Ammo_ to inappropriate uses.

Brandis exemplifies correct posture on my right. When not scanning the range for clueless initiates wandering into the line of fire, he aims critical glances at the brooding skies. Ingram, to my left, is paying close attention to a console directly in front of us, where Head Scribe Tanner is running a final systems check.

“PBP?” Tanner’s voice is clipped.

“Capacitors reading full strength,” comes the radioed response, from a speaker set into the console.

“Pre-accelerant.”

“CO2 systems nominal.”

Our experiment squats on a carefully leveled platform. Its matte black barrel is longer than I am tall. Downrange are eleven steel plates, positioned in parallel and backed by a heap of broken cinderblocks.

“LDR”

“LDR is go, the range is clear to fire.”

“Safety Coordinator?”

“SC is go, LTC, the test is ready to proceed.”

“This is Lead Test Coordinator Tanner. I’d like to extend special thanks to our team for fast- tracking this demonstration. Firing will commence in ten ….”

Any scribe, no matter how senior, should have asked permission from the ranking officer, namely myself, before starting. But interrupting a countdown would be petty. Still, I file this moment away. It isn’t Tanner’s first try at circumventing authority.

The head scribe’s amplified voice across the broken tarmac is all we hear until he gives the order to fire. Then with the roar of ten deathclaws, the barrel flares a dazzling yellow-white as a harsh reverberation, like a metal rod being slammed end first onto an unyielding surface, assaults our ears.

In the silence, we wait for the smoke to clear and the message from an armored knight downrange. The tension mounts

“Penetration one hundred percent. Test complete.”

A cheer goes up over the radio. Tanner is instantly out of his chair, color high on his cheeks. It’s all he can do to keep his face even as we leave the platform and walk towards the target area. It’s all Teagan can do not to race ahead.

Exactly as predicted in this morning’s briefing, our new railgun just sent a projectile at five times the speed of sound through ten plates each more than an inch thick. Ingram slows to examine the first, nearly clean, puncture and each increasingly ragged hole down the line. The rest of us continue towards the end where what used to be a bullet-shaped piece of aluminum lies in tortured fragments on the ground.

As Tanner retrieves one of the deadly slivers and passes it to me for inspection, I can feel my chest expand. _This_ is the way to victory. This weapon on an improved vertibird will give us unquestionable superiority over this crude artillery springing up in nearby. Not that the settlers are a threat. But if the Institute were to capture, say, that fortification to the south, there might be cause for concern.

My heightened optimism lasts through the meal the audience and test personnel take together in one corner of our new hangar. Pieces of fuselage, flown in from Adams, are already on site. They will be doped with silicon isotopes to make them lighter, stronger, and better able to resist energy damage.

Paladin Kano asks permission to raise a toast to our as-yet-unbuilt bird of prey. He stands with shoulders set and black topknot gleaming, even in the shade.

“To the raptor. May it aid us in wiping the Institute off the map.”

It’s not the worst of toasts, although it hints at the uncomfortable truth of us having to put the Institute on the map in the first place. But today, this feels like a minor detail.

I take time, in the afternoon, to stop by Quinlan’s office where Scribe Vargas has, after some negotiation, been assigned. Her crimson robes are in stark contrast to the surrounding greyness. Quinlan makes his excuses and is gone in less time than it takes his cat, watching from atop one of the filing cabinets, to get up, stretch, and settle lazily back down again.

Strict supervision was one condition of Vargas being allowed work here. It has Quinlan and I staging plays in which an Elder is always somehow in need of some archived report or dataset. Exit the proctor and cue his dutiful assistant, keeping me company as I wait.

Red tape is just one reason why taking the measure of this woman is turning out to be harder than expected.

“I saw the railgun performed well.” Vargas offers as she pulls a file and spreads it out on top of others in the drawer she is working from. “Were you pleased?”

My eyebrow cants itself into a question. She was not on the platform or at lunch with us.

“It was the squires,” she admits, not at the level of a bitten lip, but not defiant either. “They kept asking if Proctor Quinlan could take them to the command deck. We went back to our posts right away, of course.”

“Of course.” I hide a smile. Curiosity will find a way.

Pale fingers skip along an avenue of upright files. There was a holo, once. A dance where women leapt and spun and and seemed to barely touch the stage, all while balancing on pointed toes. Here is similar grace.

“I don’t know if you could see from your platform but the test flushed out so much game. Proctor Quinlan said the long eared ones were rad-rabbits?”

A hum of agreement rolls out of me. “They seem to be from an island near here. Neriah believes they made it across only recently or they’d be all up and down the eastern seaboard by now.”

“Strange that these cats aren’t also irradiated.” Vargas nods towards the deceptively small bundle of fur and fangs giving us insouciant looks from just above the open drawer. Looks that remind me, somehow, of Knight Logan. My thoughts stray, wondering if she’s had any success over the past two weeks. If she intends to return at all.

“Our best guess is they came from a vault,” I say, dragging myself back to the present. “Also not that long ago. We have only a few at the Citadel.”

“This one is sweet.” She reaches over to scratch the animal between its ears.

“I have more than one scar that says otherwise.”

Vargas smiles as if she thinks I’m joking. Our striped audience misses the exchange, intent on its massage, now that it’s no longer hypnotized by Vargas having her way with paper and cardstock. Can’t say I blame the creature.

“You’re not dangerous, are you?”

I nearly answer before it’s clear that her indulgent tone and question are for the cat. The backs of her fingers travel gently along its sleek fur. Soon we hear the motor-buzz of contentment these animals make in the rare moments when they are not plotting to kill someone.

It’s easy to imagine the backs of those same fingers pressed against the scribe’s own lips. Dark lashes closed over pale cheeks that would no doubt betray the slightest blush, telling any lover how ready she was and telling me still more. I am not above using our tradition to assess loyalty or how someone feels about me in particular.

But making advances is off the table because I risk more than just insult. We are the only personnel who haven’t had one of Cade’s semi-annual shots. The westerners submitted to theirs with no comment except to ask that Vargas be excluded, for obvious reasons. If she proves to be a suitable match, there will be no reason to put off continuing my line.

“You’d be better off with a dog,” I tell the scribe. “They can at least be trained.”

“Not to use a sandbox.” She wrinkles her nose in a way that still manages to be attractive.

It’s a fair point. Whatever qualities Scribe Vargas might lack, she has an agile mind. I checked off that box some time ago.

Soon Quinlan is back with whichever, tape or artifact I “requested” and it’s time to move on, move forward, move through each and every one of the remaining tasks for the day. It’s hours past lights out before there’s any time to dwell on the scribe’s suitability. The highs and lows of the day have, by then, wound me tighter than Danse keeps his boot laces and sleep eludes me. The ship’s training area stands empty, but it’s unseemly for an Elder be skulking around at all hours. Kells reminded me of this when he heard I’d been on the command deck the night before we made contact with the West.

Vargas is beautiful, of course. The spray of freckles across her cheeks charms me. A slowly changing array of hairstyles draws interest without being too showy and leaves me wondering how much of that chestnut silk there might be to spill into my hands some night. More than once already, I’ve had to steer clear of imagining what she would look like bent over Quinlan’s desk.

So, lying in bed, I focus on other things. Because it’s not new, this feeling of wanting what I can’t have, this urgency of shoving at blankets and pulling briefs down to where I can kick them off. It used to happen whenever Danse refused another summons of mine at the Citadel. Just once, he’d said that first night, and was true to his word.

There is room at Adams, one forgotten by time. A conference room with floor-to-ceiling windows, kept immaculate by robots for reasons no one knows. The Enclave in their mobile platform overlooked it, so for twenty minutes on the day we first occupied Adams, the room was mine. I did nothing but sit there, taking in the illusion of a peaceful world that made sense.

Lancers now use this room as an operations center. Yet in my mind, tonight, the room is empty as when I found it. Just a table and chairs awaiting officers long gone.

And Danse.

His skin has a burnished glow brought on by the setting sun. His eyes, as I kneel to suck him diamond hard, are dark as they watch me. His mouth unlocks to pant my name. One of his big hands strokes the shaved side of my head to urge me gently on.

I have him gripped tight. I work a spit-slick shaft that one hand can’t contain. With a pointed tongue, I probe his slit. With swollen lips, I suck at that nerve center behind and underneath a cap that’s almost red with how much he needs this. Danse’s balls hang heavy, soft and hot. Paying them close attention, first with my hand and then with an eager mouth, gets my own cock to jerk in the cool air of fantasy and the burning fist of real life.

Standing doesn’t work in this situation, not for long. Danse has to lean against the edge of that long table, white-knucked with the held-in urge to thrust.

 _Do it_ , I whisper, backing off just long enough to speak. He slides in with moans that tell me exactly how good it feels to hit the back of my throat. A gasp sounds when I relax and open to let him push deeper. It feels right to hold him like that. To retreat, breathe, and swallow him back down. To savor that salt-but-sweet I’d taste every night if I could.

He’s lost in pleasure. A loose, unselfconscious slouch that’s anathema to everything he is while on duty. The waves coming off of him are so strong that I’m spasming in the air without even a touch, though in fact my aching, leaking cock is getting all the attention I can give it and yet still not all that it wants.

When Danse gets down on the floor with me, we kiss. Our legs scissor as if we’re wrestling. I take playful grabs at his shoulders and ass, at his smooth waist, and at the scruff he invariably keeps on his face. At one point my hip is somehow balanced on his thigh and we rut sinfully together. His dick is so wet and hot. Perfect for mine to slide against, dabbing a promise of what I want to deliver onto his corrugated abs. He takes a hand off the floor to seize both of our cocks. It’s the ultimate. I see the line of his jaw as he’s arched away. A dark nipple, straining. Our shafts in his calloused palm beat in time with the thunder of my too-real heart and —

_Danse._

_Yes._

_I —_

The climax hits me like a knight in full armor, pummeling its way out of my groin. I come apart at the seams. As if light spills out of me and into my night-dark quarters where, a panting minute later the Wakemaster accuses me of having less than five hours before reveille.

That sweat-dark t-shirt I stripped off halfway through will have to serve for cleanup. I don’t have the will to find anything else.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things are getting ... shall we say stressful?

The wet-dishrag smell of mirelurk stew has been in the air for hours, leaving no doubt as to what’s for lunch today. Still, I need to be prompt, to set an example if nothing else. Food is fuel, I remind myself, but the mantra doesn’t hearten me the way it usually does.  

Today Cade finds a seat at my table. Quinlan, conspicuously alone, soon joins us.

“Did you misplace Vargas?” Cade asks.

The proctor takes a round of flatbread and begins tearing it into such even strips, I doubt anyone in here could duplicate them. “Tanner borrowed her for a few days. His team needs to log changes to the raptor’s design.” 

Cade spares me a glance before looking back to the proctor. “Strange they didn’t have one of the other scribes do it.”

Quinlan shrugs using only his forehead. “She knows the original specs better than most of the others, now.” 

“Then you’re satisfied with her work.”

“Oh yes, quite.”

So I’ve heard _ad nauseam_. It should be the proctor’s new motto. 

Our chief archivist paints Vargas as polite, efficient, and dedicated. But I’m beginning to wonder if her charisma has somehow blinded him. Even when asked to speak frankly, Quinlan can no more say a negative word about Vargas than let another scribe handle the issues of Grognak some of our field teams present to him like relics of a long-lost faith. 

“Too bad their medic wasn’t assigned to work up here,” Cade says, half serious. 

“Her attention to detail is remarkable. It’s so much easier to find things.”  

It’s all I can do to eat in silence. 

This feeling of being trapped in a pressure chamber started weeks ago, during another “chance” encounter with said scribe. We sat a respectable distance apart, she at Quinlan’s terminal, I in a chair near the door, chaperoned by everyone walking along the corridor between Cade and Quinlan’s workrooms. All at once it struck me — every topic we’d ever discussed had the distinct mark of being pre-approved. The west’s collection of historical volumes. Her enjoyment of reading in general. Stories of her childhood. Social and military customs. Our genealogies. The ranks and duties of her many family members.

Of course I got the impression I was meant to. Here, for my consideration, was someone sophisticated. Well-mannered. Fertile. 

Ingram, Gavil, Teagan, Neriah, no one who’s worked with Vargas does anything but highlight her merits. Frequently. Whether I ask or not. Even Danse, has yet to see any flaw in her, or in any of the westerners for that matter. And aside from Tanner’s snobbery and ridiculous haircut, neither have I. 

The entire situation has me ready to climb the walls.

With my bowl empty, I start to excuse myself, only to be held up by Cade prescribing another dose of Rad-Away. The look I give him will hopefully ask if he’s joking. I’ve barely been off this ship except to train and visit the firing range. 

“We can’t be too careful,” he advises. 

Which means that in medbay, hooked up to an IV stand, I become the perfect audience for his rundown of a particular scribe’s entirely sound constitution. Cade also points out her family’s low incidence of congenital defects in a litany all the more irritating because I didn’t see it coming. 

I grit my teeth.  

There is word, once I’m out of Cade’s clutches, that Kano’s recon team is back from the vicinity of the Glowing Sea. I have him join me on the observation deck for a quick debrief before he writes his official report. 

“We have narrowed down the possible locations of your armaments cache.” The paladin’s voice has a somber quality. An old scar pulls one corner of his mouth slightly outwards. “There are several nearby installations that could have what we’re looking for. But the levels at Waypoint Echo mean we’ll need full armor and anywhere from 750 to 1000 units of Rad-Away per soldier to mount an expedition.”

“You checked with Cade.”

“Double-checked it, sir. With our medic as well.”

“We’ll need months to produce that amount.” My gaze, as I frown, slides past Kano to a pileup of yellow-tinged clouds past skeletal high rises. Another radstorm. Speak of the devil. 

“What about Scribe Neriah’s X-111 compound?”

“It’s a waste to administer that formula to anything less than a critical case. We’ll need the bulk of our resources in Rad-X and Rad-Away unless your scribes have some armor-shielding tricks up their sleeves.” 

“I’m afraid not, sir. We’ve never had cause to go into such highly irradiated areas.”

“Unfortunate.” I inhale and let it out slowly. “Was there any trace of Knight Logan?”

Kano pauses before answering. “With respect, sir, I’ve seen that report. It only mentions an individual wearing power armor of uncertain origin and design in the vicinity of the Glowing Sea, not necessarily heading into it. Other reports have her leaving the Glowing Sea in a T-60d some time before that.”

“Those are older sightings. I believe she may have taken a second trip.”

“Alone? That would be suicide.”

“It would take some audacity.” I don’t mention it’s a trait she’s known for.

“Elder, if I had to hazard a guess, it would be that the armor belongs to someone from the Institute.”

“All the more reason to keep your eyes and ears open. Thank you, Paladin. You are dismissed.”

The westerner salutes and strides off the command deck, his power armor clanking. Kano never fails to be respectful and yet something about his demeanor continually puts me off. I mull this over as the clouds begin their unearthly shift from yellow to green.  

Kells joins me soon afterwards. A pair of initiates set up a folding table and our largest map of the area. As Brandis takes notes, we review troop movements and energy readings, moving crude wooden markers around. Having no sign of where the Institute could be at the juncture sits less easily than lunch. 

“May I have a word?” Kells asks, after Brandis and the props of our makeshift war room are gone again. 

“By all means.” I indicate the worn loungers, but the Lancer Captain prefers to remain standing.

“I would like to ask what you have decided regarding Scribe Vargas.” 

The look I gave Cade has nothing on the one I direct at my second. Kells doesn’t take the hint. Instead his ramrod spine straightens, something I didn’t think was possible. 

I draw myself up as well. “I wasn’t aware a decision was required so early in the game.”

“The westerners have been with us for nine weeks. Sooner rather than later would be optimal.”

We are angled towards each other but towards the windows as well, each of us watching the clouds darken. In the distance, beyond the Mass Fusion building, lightning sparks.

My voice grates even on me. “And you feel this way because?”

“What I know,” he emphasizes the word, “is that every brother and sister here and at the Citadel holds you in the highest regard. You have spent years building our chapter and I have every confidence that we can root out the Institute and salt the ground behind us. But I won’t stand by while the Brotherhood sinks into chaos again.”

“I fail to understand your meaning,” I say with an inflection meant to indicate the fault isn’t mine.

“Two words: Sarah Lyons.”

The words are perfectly aimed. Sharp as darts. 

“I don’t know the westerners’ motives,” I protest, “least of all hers.”

“You didn’t know the Outcasts’ motives. I don’t remember that stopping you.”

 _I wasn’t expected to bed the Outcasts_ is what crosses my mind, though the argument could be made that I already have. 

Kells right-faces to regard me squarely. “Consider it, Elder. And soon, if you can. You have the power to unite us as never before.”

When he is gone I allow myself a moment to lean on the railing and observe the whitecaps hurling themselves against anything they can. Somehow I find the will to take a deep breath. Another. Gradually, my heart slows. 

I am in more or less the same position three days later when a lancer comes up from the bridge. Another radstorm looks to be brewing. They’re becoming almost typical of these summer afternoons. Just like the bone-deep weariness that sets in after every night with too little sleep.  

The lancer coughs politely and I turn to hear her announcement. 

“Sir, Senior Paladin Jarvis, asking if you had any time to visit the lab. There’s a new piece of tech she would like to introduce to you.”

“Tell her I’ll be down momentarily.”

On the flight deck, the wind has picked up. It would be pleasant if the air wasn’t shot through with unhealthy prickle of the coming radstorm. My thoughts go to the initiates still camping in the ruined parking structure and their morale under these conditions. I see Knight Sergeant Gavil the moment I’m down. 

“Double the initiates’ allotment of Rad-X. We’ve had storms five days out of seven this week.”

“Sir, Knight Captain Cade warned me to keep our supplies in check. We can’t have our field teams running out.” 

“Immediately,” I bark and he stiffens, “and why does this entire place smell like mutfruit?”

Gavil lifts a tarp to show me baskets upon crates of the purple globes, all exceedingly ripe. “Brahmin have been coming in from one of the settlements for about three days now. This is all they bring.”

I frown. “Some kind of tribute?”

“I’m not sure.”

An irritated sigh escapes me. “Have someone from Neriah's team come and test this for contaminants. If it passes, gather anyone who doesn’t have essential duties and get it processed. Above all, keep the squires away. Five minutes alone with these things and they’ll all need radiation treatments.”

My Knight Sergeant salutes in the stiff way soldiers have when I’m too brusque. But any fool could see the calories wasted and blow to morale if this fruit is allowed to rot away in the heat. 

Lower-ranking personnel practically jump out of my way, but I’m past caring about slowing down or acknowledging anyone as I climb back to the second level and take a crumbling but still serviceable walkway to the jetliner. At the last moment I stop, collect myself, and take a more measured final few steps. 

The westerners’ lab is a marvel of order. Equipment lines the curved walls, with some of their tech and more of ours laid painstakingly out on well-lit worktables. 

Jarvis salutes. “We appreciate your coming to see us so quickly.”

More theater of politesse or a legitimate use of my time? “I needed to stretch my legs. Let’s make this quick, Paladin.”

“Of course, sir.”

She escorts me to an unfamiliar machine with an inclined top. It reminds me of something an old-world leader might stand behind and lie. 

“A neutrino scanner,” she explains. “It reads oscillations of scattered electron neutrino beams to measure structural integrity.”

“Seems of limited tactical use.” The paladin is no scribe. I spare a moment to wonder why she’s the one demonstrating this.

She is all smiles and ease. “I’ve heard there are underground areas of the airport we could expand into, if they are proven safe.”

I think of mutfruit in cooler storage, a munitions plant, a place to put Neriah’s lab so the smell of it wouldn’t offend our noses day in and day out. I think of living quarters and a fallback location for ground forces. 

Yet I hesitate. 

Because the west, with all its gifts and goodwill, is starting to sound like a bell calling the faithful to prayer, field hands to table, children to the start of their school day. Come, it says, share in our wealth. But don’t forget that the hours of your day are passing. Time is growing short. 

And while there are no obvious reasons to refuse, I am beginning to trust this entire charade as far as a mole rat creeps without digging. 

“Sir?” Jarvis prompts, inclining her head. 

I blink away the webs of mistrust. “Scan the lower levels and see what we can make of them.” 

“Thank you, Elder. _Ad victoriam_.”

I remember more about bells on the way back to the terminal. How before the Great War they were used to announce weddings. Funerals. Fires.

It’s become a habit, whenever I’m down here, to look in on what Tanner and his group are up to. This time is no different, though the wind ahead of the radstorm is scorching at ground level. It blows grit into my eyes and moans as I wrestle an access door to the new hangar closed.

Inside all is still and dark. The western scribes must already be sheltering inside their heavily reinforced barracks. Danse tells me our guests find radstorms even more unsettling than we do. 

No matter. I welcome the silence and the chance to be alone with our new raptor. It stands mostly assembled although the railgun has yet to be mounted and the engines are being improved. I step inside and imagine a time when this machine will slice through the harshest winds like they were nothing, overpowered rotors thundering away as it provides air support to our armored units or even to Liberty Prime, should Ingram ever locate what we need to get it running again. 

Another rush of wind heralds voices.   

“Well, where did you leave it?” A imperious-sounding complaint. It’s Tanner, of course.

“Over by the avionics bench, I think.” A higher voice, and sweet. Vargas. 

“You think,” he snorts. 

In a moment they will hit the lights and though I have every right to be here, being seen in here by myself will look for all the Commonwealth like a squire at play. I descend and find some crates to walk behind. 

Tanner’s words march on. “If we don’t find it, you’re going to recreate every last word and diagram before you go up there again.”

“I don’t think it matters anymore.” Her voice is laced with something I’ve never heard before. Not from Vargas, at least.   

“You’d better make it matter. The Elder’s Council will never approve more transfers if you don’t succeed.”

It’s evident what they’re discussing. The pull know overcomes me and, in any case, there is no way to escape without being heard and no way forward without looking like a complete ass. 

“We can’t offer more until he trusts me.”

“And who’s fault is that?”

“Everyone’s!” Her answer is a rifle tuned hot. “Why should he give one second more of his time to this … mole rat brood mother you’ve turned me into? I can’t breathe a word about the High Council, their plans. Not even about Jessica. Don’t you think I’d like to reassure him?”

It guts me, this deathclaw-swipe of a name. _My mother._

“His connection has to be with you, not some estranged woman who sent him as far away as he could travel.”

_Is she alive?_

“Then let me be honest with him.” 

“How much honesty does a man need? Do your duty and remind him of his. Or whisper in his ear.” Tanner’s voice rises to mimic hers. “I’ll do anything, Elder. Anything you want.”

“I'm not —“

“With that reputation, he’ll come up with more than a few things, I’m sure.”

“Don’t be disgusting,” she says.

There’s a smirk behind the words. “What did you think you were signing up for?”

My hand on corrugated metal is all that’s anchoring to me to this world. He’s talking to this woman like she’s some kind of … _synth_. Just curcuits and womb, programmed for a task. The edges of my vision darken. I shake with effort of staying in place. It would say little for my diplomatic skills if I were to cross a distance I’ve already estimated and with a fist shut Tanner’s insolent mouth.

And my mother … never a word and now ...

I still remember every day of that continent-wide trek. Fear and confusion twisting into despair as our vehicles failed one by one. I wasn’t conditioned for the field when we left but I damn well was by the time we arrived. Blisters on top of blisters. Raw skin from where the pack dug into my shoulders.

A door slams and silence curls around me. There are no more steps. No voices. 

The radstorm is in full swing by the time I make it back. The ionizing radiation is so strong that my skin prickles, I imagine it it tearing through my cells like bullets through paper. But I can’t stay on the ground a moment longer. I send lancer who had to fly in this shit straight to Cade, who will no doubt be after me again before long with an IV stand an a lecture that will shake every gantry on board.   

But at the moment my priority is stripping down to PT gear and spending as long with a speedbag as it takes to exhaust me. Then sitting with a tumbler that never really empties. Too keep me just numb enough. I ignore the meal sent later. I have no stomach for it. 

That night, I am handed a message from our new holotype link by the same lancer who met me earlier. She doesn’t linger. The contents of the message make it easy to see why. 

PRDWN  
DE LHB NR 005  
R 090212Z JUL  
FM MXNCAL HCOM   
TO EL ARMXN  
WD GRNC  
BT  
UNCLAS

APPROVE TIMELINE TO FOLLOW  
VRTBD/RLGUN TECH TRANSFER   
ENVOY TO RETURN AT COMPLT   
EXCL ADDL NEED

ADVCTM

BT  
C WA OVER HOLOTYPE  
NNNN

The Council of Elders needs me to “approve” of timeline for this transfer of technologies, after which their elite forces will make their return journey. Unless I have “additional need” of their personnel. 

When I crumple the message into a hard little ball there are creaks from my fist. 

I leave the paper meteorite on top of my desk and try for a few hours of sleep. But when it eludes me again I have no inclination to put my overused hands to any task except rewrapping each other, and having a discussion of sorts with the training room’s heaviest sandbag. Over and over, again and again, I lay into it with blows that make the unwieldy mass leap on its steel chain until I’m nowhere, no one, nothing at all. 

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oh, you thought I wouldn't pull the trigger? :)

Flowers wilt. This makes them inappropriate to symbolize a bond supposedly forged from eternal steel. Decorations would be inappropriate at any rate. We are on a warship in a time of war.

And yet we have our signs and symbols. The flag from behind my desk hangs from struts overhead. The gossamer-fine wires make our sword and gears appear to float above the grey shipping container at the forward end of the large living area cleared for the occasion. The one on which we stand. In the midst of us is Kells, his uniform pressed to knife-edge respectability, his voice powerful enough to reach every set of ears in the Prydwen’s cavernous interior. Every stairway and platform, every flat surface with a direct line of sight holds these listeners. Most lean forward, straining to catch every word.

“When, in the course of human events, it becomes evident that a brother and sister are fully aligned with the Tenets and with one another …”

This day has the underwater quality of the surreal. It’s sleep deprivation, I’m sure of it.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident. That to protect humanity, the Brotherhood must remain vital. That to amend the misdeeds of the old world, the Brotherhood must remain firm. That to honor the sacrifices of past brothers and sisters in their struggle to keep technology from those who would misuse it …”

Kells goes on. Inner voices overlap his, forming out of static. I’m a radio receiver scanning the band.

 _The High Council will never approve more transfers if you don’t succeed_ , Tanner sneers.

“Who stands for this man?” says Kells.

From my right comes full-toned voice of the soldier I appointed

“I, William Danse, offer to all assembled Arthur Justinian Maxson, Elder of the Capital chapter the Brotherhood of Steel.

“Do you vouch for him?”

“I do. In addition to being the direct descendant of Roger Edward Maxson, we have prospered as never before under his lead. In 2283 he brokered peace with the Outcasts, a faction ….”

 _You have the power to unite us as never befor_ e, Kells’ voice intrudes and I imagine him looking out over the harbor with me on that hair-trigger night. Why can’t I stay focused?

“Who stands for this woman?”

“I, Alanna Jarvis, present to all assembled Juneau Eleanor Vargas of the Lost Hills Bunker of Maxson, New California Republic.”

“Do you vouch for her?”

“I do. She is a direct descendant of the First Families, a loyal servant of the Order of the Quill, discovering and preserving knowledge for the ages. She is steadfast in her dedication to the Tenets and to the cause.”

 _We can’t offer more until he trusts me_. Juneau’s voice sounds as low and urgent in my mind as on the day I overheard her.

Kells goes on. And on. The air is close. Humid. Though it’s past the hottest part of the day, this concentration of bodies has overwhelmed the ship’s climate control. For the first time since I can remember, the bulk of my coat feels stifling.

“Though this bond may be forged from steel, it too can be broken. Arthur Justinian Maxson and Juneau Eleanor Vargas, do you agree that this union will be dissolved in case of death.”

“We do,” she and I say in unison. _Two words: Sarah Lyons._

“In case of most probable death.”

Again we agree. Ours is a harsh world. Her duty and mine are to the Brotherhood first. Still, Kano’s voice crowds in. _Alone? That would be suicide._

“In case of infidelity”

 _Then let me be honest with him_ , comes Juneau’s voice again.

“In case of infertility”

 _We can’t be too careful_ , says Cade. And then, in a rush, unbidden: _Need you to come inside me, Arthur, please …._

“For insubordination of the highest order.”

“We do.” It is rare, but brothers and sisters have strayed so far as to have nearly every right stripped from them. And in case of treason we do not exile, we execute.

“Then, barring this, let this worthy brother and sister be eternally joined in steel. Ad victoriam!”

The roar of the crowd is a shockwave, jarring in its intensity. Applause and whistling and stamping of feet vibrate through the hull, announcing what has happened even to the skeleton crew on the bridge.

I turn towards this woman, my wife. Her eyes hold deeper blues than mine, seas versus evening skies. Her cheeks are touched with the same crimson as her uniform, as suitable for this as any day. Our vows adorn us, not costumes or jewelry that would hinder our work and waste our resources.

Juneau smiles at me. Her chin lifts.

As we raise our joined hands, the audience thunders its approval in a swell that ebbs and flows, but never completely fades as Quinlan climbs makeshift stairs to stand with us. He presents the oldest copy of the Scrolls we have board, dusted off for the occasion. There are places towards the end for my name and for Juneau’s, which does not change. It has been a custom, I am told, since hesitations in the field began to cost early sisters their lives.

And so we sign. The proctor, misty-eyed, closes his well-worn book and steps back.

“Attennn-tion!” Danse’s voice cuts through even this din. He cracks the word like a whip.

Along the aisle ahead of us, knights of the east and west snap into formation, boots thunder on the deck.

“Center face!” They pivot as one consciousness.

“Present arms!”

As we pass through the victorious arch of rifles, applause and cheering swell to near-deafening proportions. Everyone, from starry-eyed squires to dignified senior ranks, watches the procession. With Juneau’s small, cool hand in mine there is, for the first time since the ceremony began, an immediacy, a rightness to it all.

Kells, Danse, Jarvis, Juneau, and I form a reception line in the mess hall. It’s not the easiest gauntlet I’ve ever had to run, but it’s not the worst thing in the world to greet every brother or sister with the good fortune to be on board. The squires are in especially high spirits. A cadre of knights with forethought have given them the task of performing Wings and Gears Forever in decent pitch and cadence before packing them all off to the rec area at the bottom of the ship for dinner followed by bread and mutfruit preserves, like we had at the Citadel in good years.

Food shipments are still coming in. Trade agreements, which I now recall were set up by Knight Logan months ago are literally bearing fruit. And corn. And tatos. Between this produce and the game brought down for the occasion, everyone will eat their fill tonight and more. Even the rules governing alcohol have been relaxed, although officially I am not supposed to know this.

The higher ranks stay in the mess while everyone else heads to the flight deck and the longer, more boisterous celebration on the ground. Meanwhile, my stomach growls, anticipating food I’ve been craving since we left the capital. Rack of radstag. Seafood pottage. Sauteed vegetables in brahmin butter. Mutfruit pudding with wild honey.

Jarvis spirits my new wife off just after dessert. Danse has already told me it will do no good to inquire, which is fair enough. There are no doubt customs I’m unaware and maybe shouldn’t be aware of until the appropriate time.

The rest of us linger in the mess hall over drinks and old stories intended to praise or embarrass me, or both. Brandis tells one about a new knight’s ecstatic discovery of a working Corvega and how he nearly killed himself trying to drive it. Quinlan recalls a squire sneaking into the Lyons’ Den to read Guns and Bullets, lying under the bed the entire time so as to avoid removing said magazine from where its owner put it. Teagan drinks too much and makes such ass of himself that Ingram has to support him out. Kano turns bright red after just one rum and Nuka and is still a little pink when Jarvis reappears and nods at Danse, who’s had nothing more potent than a beer even though I encouraged him more than once.

It’s become time to stand and accept parting congratulations before walking down the hall to my quarters. Strange that my gut should twist during this short journey to a familiar door.

The door opens into a darkness that, while not complete, is deep enough to make it clear that the sooner I step inside, the less awkward any of this will be.

She is sitting up in bed and already undressed, if her bare shoulders above what looks like finely woven sheet are any indication. It’s hard to tell. The lantern-light from my desk leaves much of her in shadow.

“Is this customary?” is what I finally manage to say.

“Some of it.”

Juneau’s is a neutral tone. Unreadable.

There is a different atmosphere in the room, airier and with a hint of something that isn’t Abraxo. More changes becomes obvious, the more I look around. A table, cleared. A desk, straightened and with its usual muster of bottles removed to a shelf. Cabinets — I run a finger along the nearest one — dusted.

I cross the room on the pretext of hanging up my coat, but more slowly than usual. Cracking the seal on a can of water masks the sound of gliding a desk drawer open. Its contents, at least, don’t seem to have been disturbed.

Is the new state of my quarters unwelcome? Not exactly. Disruptive? It’s difficult to say. No doubt the reorganization was intended as a favor, either to myself or to this stranger in my bed, her hair already out of its intricate style from earlier. It will be an adjustment, thinking of this room as community property.

The water accompanies me to the head of the table, where I pause and consider how to proceed. The edge of my own bunk seems an oddly forward place to sit and yet what choice is there? Standing as I would on the observation deck, surveying my domain? Sitting alone at this table, where I’d expected to have the first truly private conversation with this woman I am joined to for life?

No matter. An inflexible leader is a dead one.

I take Juneau the water. The bed really is draped in some kind of cotton or linen, not the rough blankets that come and go perhaps less frequently than she would like. Out of modesty, or nerves, or some unknown set of expectations, Juneau holds the fabric close. Her throat works as she swallows.

The can is back in my hand before long. Juneau’s lowered eyes tell me nothing, so I take another big mouthful and as I’m leaning over to place the water just underneath the bed, she all but makes me choke with her next words.

“Should I undress you?”

What does she imagine this is, some sort of pre-war assembly line?

Shock doesn’t keep me from rising to my feet, even if my eyes do stay closed for longer than a blink. “I’ll take care of it.”

The alcove holding my desk is deep enough to let me disrobe out of sight, though the warped and oversized shadow of a man still contorts itself along the opposite wall. I’ll have to be careful. There’s no telling what she’s heard.

This realization means my briefs stay on for the walk back. I also don’t disturb Juneau’s potion of the sheet as I pick up the outer corner and slide in. One arm does go behind her. The bed is too narrow or I am too broad for there to be no overlap.

The way she leans against me then is like an appeal for mercy.

It plucks at something, her delicate scent and slight frame. They stir a need to kiss her hairline. Which I do. And which may be a first for me, I’d have to think.

But now isn’t the time for thinking. It’s for settling other kisses on brow, and bridge, and tip of her narrow nose. As Juneau’s blind mouth turns, something flares behind my holotags. Her barely-pursed lips brush mine, hovering, as if unsure of their place. _Here_ , I say without words, pressing softly forward. _Here is where you should be._

She’s like the first touch of my pillow at night, that sense of relaxing into a soft but not too yielding embrace. It’s all I can do not to overwhelm her with the heat of a mouth long denied. There is more to Arthur Maxson than a so-called reputation and Juneau Vargas will know this and perhaps appreciate it in time.

And though it’s too soon to be this hard, she galvanized me when her mouth sought mine and now I’m twitching at the feel of this alone. I can’t help it. The wait has been longer than since the first time Danse refused a second visit. Since I began taking others, one after the other, in an unbroken chain from the Citadel to this bed hundreds of feet in the air.

Juneau is giving the distinct impression of being new at this, what with the covers still firmly in place and her hands unmoving as one of mine glides over her freckled cheek and into the sleek mass of her hair. When I trail that same hand down the enticing midline of her back and onto a slight yet still womanly hip, she breaks off and curls more tightly into the hollow of my neck.

It’s too much, perhaps.

“It’s all right,” I tell her. The heat in my chest swells into an ache of unsayables. “We can wait.”

A wordless shake of her head. “Show me?”

The question tugs at my cock. The trust she displays has that ungovernable part of me straining towards her like the broken throttle of a vertibird with both engines out.

Eyes elsewhere, she lets the sheet drop and guides my hand to what has until now been covered. Breasts that are barely a palmful surround puffed-up nipples. They rise so proudly above already elevated mounds, all of it wrapped in the flawless skin of a life spent safe underground. Even Logan’s body bears more scars and imperfections.

It’s as impossible to stay away as to leave the Citadel unarmed. I kiss each swollen cap and when she sighs and arches her back I take her into my mouth. And lay her down. And we’re off.

An easy suckling draws highest, most erotic sounds out of her. I hear breath catching in a slender throat. Voiced sighs that crackle around the edges and waver as her hips start to roll. I’m playing with both sides of her, alternating hand and mouth. Short nails along the freshly-shaved sides of my head shower me with a thousand scintillating gamma rays. My nerves sing.

  
I want to learn her inside and out. Test every response. Map her until she’s spent and sweating. But this intimate moment apparently means nothing to whichever gourd-headed whoreson in power armor is clanging up the ladder outside these quarters, someone I’ll Wonderglue to the forecastle as the ship’s figurehead if I ever ID him.

Juneau curls into me more tightly but at least she doesn’t startle. Another moment is enough to find out why

She is startlingly, beautifully wet. I hiss in a breath and sigh on the exhale. Juneau wants this.

My new wife may be bound by feelings or traditions I can’t fathom, but this speaks volumes. So does her responsiveness as I toy with lips already pouting. There’s a strong urge to move down her body and taste a delta lusher than the beard I’ve trimmed for tonight as a concession to the westerners who keep their faces bare. But she stops me. Again, it may be too far too fast, although she hums in pleasure as I center my body over hers. Small hands glide down my back, pulling me in, as if she wants to be that glove already. Not that I can be sure when three quarters of every coherent thought is being shoved aside by the massive erection I’ve been trying not to grind into my shorts, or her, or anything, really. Except now I fit myself against her for just a moment. Giving up. Giving in.

The longest, loveliest ohhh that floats up is one I’ll remember. Juneau molds herself against me, her sex twitching. All along my underside, I’m the leading edge of a flaming sword, the kind raider bosses in the Capital used to fashion for themselves before we brought peace.

“More?” I whisper.

Juneau catches her breath. The scent of her is maddening. I have to grip her fine hair to stay still as I hang, aching, on the lip of her consent.

She nods, her eyes shut tight.

Pushing my briefs down is inelegant, but not as awkward as climbing off her to remove them completely. So I opt for the lesser evil. Suck in air for that brief, initial push. It’s sweet torture to wait for the subtle widening that says she can take more, although the her hips canting longingly up are what I’m truly after. Once I get that, everything is easy. With slightly more effort, I’m home. Kissing her temple, brushing the hair back from one perfect ear, I groan as we begin to move together. But she begins to work at me with a stepped-up tempo that is so determined there can be no way she's at ease.

“Shhh,” I tell the body pressed tight against mine. Stilling her takes hips and hands and time.

I guide us again until it’s better. Stifled moans with her lips pressed together inform me how Juneau is feeling. But she’s impatient somehow, and every time I try to add a variation, there’s an arrythmic crashing together, like initiates practicing drills.

Which is when it hits me. The strong possibility she wants this over with.

Sure enough, guiding a small hand to where Juneau could multiply her pleasure is refused. She seeks out the muscles of my back again and pumps once twice, the third time with a flourish on the end that’s clear enough. And though I want to open her, see the thousand words her face and closed eyes can tell me as she peaks, there is more than one way of being considerate in bed and this may time for it. Just recon, then. Not a full sortie.

It’s unfamiliar, this striving instead of holding back and then finishing with sound caught between self-consciousness and relief. Something low and rough, but not as long or loud as I want to be, not by half. Nor do I rest for long before easing out, and off, and towards the bulkhead, giving Juneau the chance to arrange herself as she would.

Reaching behind our heads and the pillows turns out to first on her agenda. She comes away with a cloth, no doubt put there for the purpose of wiping once, deeply between her legs. Something else I would have done for her, given the time or the liberty.

She stands up before long. A chance to appreciate her walk and very much else presents itself. I drink the chance in until I realize that what she’s doing near the table involves getting dressed.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the wait. Hope a few people are still interested in reading this.

“You don’t have to leave,” I tell her once words again are an option. 

A shift goes on over Juneau’s head, loose and white. It has a luster that I wouldn’t mind exploring with hands and cheekbones if she was in reach. 

“I should,” she says.

“I fail to see why.”

Although there is no turning towards me, her tone is soft in the lamplight. “0530 is tomorrow’s start time.”

A legitimate concern, perhaps. Tanner kept Juneau on the raptor project even after wedding plans were announced. He has never compromised with the team’s grueling schedule. Most mornings they are at work before the rest of the base has even finished PT.

“I would think they’d excuse you on this occasion.” 

“Paladin Jarvis said she would wait to escort me down.”

“Another western tradition?” It takes my level best not to spit the question out. 

Dressed and doe-eyed, Juneau turns to me at last. “I — it’s not your preference?”

My stomach twists. What I’d give for a link to the PA and the freedom to tell the esteemed Senior Paladin and her rumor-mongering personnel to get the fuck off my ship. Of course subordinates acting in the line of duty never stayed with me, but this is my wife. What kind of game is Jarvis playing?

“I’ll just tell her to leave,” Juneau hastens to amend. But her mind is already elsewhere. Any chance at meaningful conversation is over for tonight. 

It was years ago Paladin Krieg first taught me to mask the urge to sigh with indrawn breaths. “It’s fine. Just wait a moment and I’ll see you out.”

Juneau drops her gaze as I throw back the covers, as if acknowledging my nakedness is too much familiarity for one night. I dress with rapid movements. Re-lace my boots as if for the field. It is evident some things will need to be made clear to the west and I’m about to create the opportunity. Meanwhile, Juneau gives ground to Scribe Vargas. She arranges her hair with a brush that fits into one palm, straightening the tumbled silk and braiding it into something that would pass muster.

My mood is apparently such that she trails me by half a step as we trek back down the hall. Two sets of footfalls, unsynchronized. 

As we near the mess, Jarvis comes in range. She sits in conversation with the western medical officer, a moon-faced woman with with one eyebrow almost permanently cocked. But dull brass on the deck slows my progress. Shell casings. Between the entrance to Records and the mess hall the jackets from what looks like more than one box of 5mm rounds grow steadily more dense until there is no room to step between them. Some are crushed, as if one or more sets of power armor have already come this way. 

I draw breath. Every beam on this ship is going to shake with the force of my orders to clear this hazard immediately. Yet a touch on my arm intervenes. It’s barely within the bounds of propriety; our joined hands at the ceremony and just afterwards are all the Codex allows. Juneau must know this and yet, inexplicably, she’s smiling. 

“We’re supposed to take care of this.” 

I leave no part of my brow un-knit.

“It’s tradition. Something about learning to work together.” She slips into a crouch and starts collecting dull cylinders with fingers I’d prefer stayed clean.

For Juneau’s sake, I find the broom and pail Quinlan always keeps in Records. She holds the vessel as I sweep the casings together. It’s probably best to ignore the crude parallel between this and what just happened in my quarters, yet I find myself unable to help it.

Task accomplished, the way to the mess clear, my new wife presents the bucket to Jarvis. Juneau beams like a squire with a day’s haul of radgull eggs. 

“I’d like a word, Paladin,” is my gift. Forbearance instead of interrogating her as to why anyone in possession of one working synapse would find it appropriate to leave small, rolling objects in a commonly used passageway.

“Of course, sir.” 

We are heading off to seclusion when an almighty clang bayonets my eardrums. The ring is unmistakable. A suit of power armor just fell over in the repair bay beyond the mess. Oaths and orders chase a scribe, one of Ingram’s, past us and down the hall we just cleared. 

“Scribe!” I bark, in a voice intended to drag him back by the scruff. No one appears.

Double-timing it aft reveals bedlam. Tools, scattered. Shouting. My chief engineer straddles a suit of armor lying prone. An oxy-acetylene glare is harsh on her strained and sweating features, but that’s all I can see before I am stuck blinking away afterimages and roaring for someone to get me eye protection, now.

Hands press a set of goggles into mine. Others, or perhaps the same, guide me backwards, urging me to take a seat, but I resist and turn towards the whine of a cutting-disc interspersed with blows from something heavy. Half-deaf as well as half-blind, the vibrations and pressure of the cavalry running past adds to the sensory maelstrom.

“… your suit on,” Ingram shouts as the piercing grind ends. “Lift the other half from L4 the minute I get through. North, stay away from the goddamn coolant —“

Grinding again as I’m fumbling with the goggles. 

“— the plasma cutter,” someone yells. 

“Are you insane? She’s still —“

Purple and aquamarine overwrite the shifting murk behind tinted glass. Then the line of a torch re-lights Ingram’s face as the shuddering screech of cutting through uneven-density steel drowns out everything else.

“I’ve got it! I’ve got it, I’m through! Pull, Danse, on three!”

I strip the goggles off again to see two leaves of steel being peeled open along a ragged centerline. Ingram and Danse, both armored, are prying apart the groaning back of the suit on the floor. A connection bursts and steam hisses up. With it comes the sweet smell of coolant mixed with something foul, almost ghoulish. 

Tubes are being manually uncoupled from an interface suit, barely recognizable under layers of grime. The body they are extracting from this ruined chrysalis by no means bursts into flight. It hangs limp from their armored hands, gauntlets and hood hiding key features, Cade, with a quickness decades in the making, gets between us and starts spouting orders of every kind, ending with the call for a stretcher. My already thrumming pulse kicks up a notch as I take in battlefield scents. Blood. Excrement. The old-coin-and-ozone funk of ruined armor. 

Founders, the stench. 

I sense multitudes piled up behind me and turn to see Haylen, Lucia, the mess crew, and Juneau, who apparently just fainted into the western medic’s arms. Jarvis trying to revive her. 

“Everyone return -,” I shout before remembering that most duties were suspended for the evening. and have to amend with, “everyone back.”

Ingram steps towards me. Her face is streaked with grime and pushed-up goggles are making a red nimbus of her hair. 

“I apologize for the disturbance, sir.”

“No need. What happened?”

“The suit’s release was out. We were trying to put a patch in when my shit-for-brains second cut the power. No life support,” Ingram pushes her eyewear right off her head, leaving her hair, for a moment still standing. “It’s my fault. I should have had Danse in here from the beginning.”

It’s obvious now with my adrenaline draining away. The cowling over the back of the neck, even twisted open, makes it clear that this is no T-60, nor anything of ours. Danse is on one knee with the disengaged helmet in his hands. Those insect eyes, the four-fold intakes. Some remnant of the Enclave, or worse?

Even so, there is now zero doubt as to who Cade is trying to revive. 

I nod at Ingram. “Get this up on a rack and give it full forensics. Strip it down to the nuts and bolts if necessary. Danse, you as well. No one else so much as touches it. ”

“Sir,” they chant in unison. 

“Start in the morning.” I pinch between my eyes. A shot or several might stave off this tension sinking its hooks into my skull. “Just secure it for now.”

The mess is empty of any westerners by the time I pass back through. Neither are they near the infirmary where steady beeps and Cade’s lowered voice tell me no threat to life is imminent.  
My quarters, smelling vaguely of a sanitized kind of lust, are also empty of anyone besides myself and then only long enough to pour a mug of something finer than on ordinary nights. The mug accompanies me out onto the foredeck, where Kells stands, smoking.

I take a place at the railing and a contemplative sip. The air is pond-still and softly free of the day’s heat.

“You’re looking well, Elder.” 

A sidelong glance reveals Kells isn’t watching me. He is looking out towards the harbor with expressionless eyes. His uniform is still immaculate.

“How long have you had intel on Logan?”

“Scouts reported her in the area this morning.”

“But you chose not to inform me.”

Kells’ posture changes. It’s a shifting of weight from the foot closer to me to the one farther away, barely noticeable. Yet I notice. 

“She was being questioned. I may have presumed, sir, that the ceremony as well as security on board were more important than one wastelander’s comings and goings.” 

“I see.” Another burning swig passes my lips. It joins a ball of similar feeling lower down.

“We had her questioned. She wouldn’t say much beyond ‘get me out of this suit.’ I’m editing heavily for content, you understand.”

I can well imagine. “Where is the armor from?”

“She kept saying she would talk after the suit came off. What were you able to get?”

“Nothing. Cade has her.” 

“Ah.” Kells crushes the butt of his cigarette on the lid of a pre-war ashtray that snaps closed. It’s a conceit of his, just as a chessboard with matching pieces is one of mine. “Then I’ll turn in, sir, unless there’s more.” 

“Thank you, Captain.” My nod serves to dismiss him. 

It takes three restless days before Knight Logan is deemed stable enough to debrief. I’m ushered to medbay where the prodigal wastelander is propped up, looking the worse for wear, though inoffensive to my nose, at least. Her hair is done up in a red kerchief I imagine serves to make it presentable. 

“You’re looking better, Knight.”

“Better mole rat on jet, is what you’re saying.” 

My mouth quirks. Despite shadowed eyes and lesions still healing, Logan’s personality seems unaffected. 

I review the clipboard Cade set down when he left, lifting a page to examine her vitals from previous days. “I’m told you were in that suit for the better part of a month.”

“Felt like one of those long months. The kind with six weeks in it.” 

“By the levels of radiation, Ingram is believes the damage to your armor occurred in the Glowing Sea, as it did before.”

“Did you know radscorpions don’t fuck like deathclaws?” She lifts her brows just once before closing sunken eyes, as if being vulgar took too much out of her. “Boom, stinger right to the release. Guess they didn’t count on that.”

“‘They’ being ….”

“Whoever built that coffin.”

Monitors beep as a flicker of irritation warms me. “Where did you find it?”

“Most of it on a dig under Diamond City.” She rubs cracked lips together. “Danse having fun?”

That rank drop again. The verbal equivalent of leaning on repair frames, her uniform open, rolled up at the sleeves. “With what?”

“With the armor,” Logan’s eyes are still closed. “Said he was working on it when he came by before. Plus, I mean, it’s Danse. You’d have to duct tape him to his bunk to keep him away.”

I will have to speak with Cade about letting other personnel interview Logan ahead of me, although I suppose there is no harm done. My second in all but rank will tell me anything that matters. 

In the meantime, words creak their way out of Logan in answer to her own rhetorical question. “I can find you some if that’s your style. Or Danse could build you a set.” 

“Paladin Danse.”

She cracks an eye open at that. It slides insouciantly down again. “Sir, yes sir.”

My lips thin. This woman dares rebuke me after my crew saved her life?

“Those plans you were carrying,” I press, “what are they?”

This time there’s victory caught in Logan’s teeth. “You holding onto anything, Elder? ‘Cause I’d hate for you to faint like your wife did a couple days ago. Congratulations, by the way.”

The fact that Logan knows what happened while she was absent, not to mention while she was unconscious, is unsettling to say the least. But all of that is washed out by the brilliance of her discovery. This signal interceptor is the key. A way to the Institute’s black heart.

I take stock of Logan after she’s cleared for light duty, not interacting with her, just observing on my usual rounds of the ship. She spends a fair amount of time sitting near the X-01, offering advice laced with banter as Danse teases out its secrets. Her psych eval comes back clean. Still, there is a smudge, both around her eyes and in them. Those earth-brown suns take in more than they used to, especially during meals or shift changes. She is lighter on her feet as well, although the pendulum sway of her hips remains something I make sure not to watch too closely or too long. 

The evening after construction on the signal interceptor begins, the same knight taps at my door. I greet her by rank, as is proper. The bandanna covering her head bears a camouflage pattern today. She is not invited to sit.

“You’re ready for salvage detail?” I ask her. 

Logan is one of our most resourceful scavengers. It would be remiss of me not to send her after the high-powered magnets we need. With her sponsor’s oversight, of course.

“Almost. But Quinlan doesn’t have my tags and Danse says I need them.” 

As the words hang in dead air, there is time to purse my lips. Time to banish the memory of lifting those same holotags off her luminous skin. Letting the chain and steel plates fall into the same pocket as the West’s communiqué the moment I picked up my coat.

That they linger here feels like an indictment. 

The walk to my desk is an exile. And she’s behind me once I turn, having crept up on newly feline legs. Not improperly close, although closer than I’d like. As I fish the tags out of a jumbled drawer, Logan inclines her head in an I-told-you-so that all but smirks, and she bows her head as if waiting for me to crown it with laurels. 

Nice try, General. 

I brush past. The land northwest of some paperwork I’ve left spread out on my meeting table, in anticipation of her quick dismissal.

“No stopping at any of your settlements,” is my directive. “Locate what we need and return immediately.”

I mean it in warning. But as those fortunate holotags slide past her collar, a dimpled cheek and a voice full of brahmin cream turn the order into something else. 

“Don’t worry. I’ll be back soon.” 

Fantasies unfold in my mind. There are valves to be unstuck on the flight deck in the heat of mid-afternoon. Rust to scrape. This woman may have brought us the keys to the Institute but it doesn’t give her the right dance on the edge of innuendo, assume my negligence to file something with Records connotes interest. Especially not behind a door I’ve had her shut to prevent the whole ship from overhearing anything classified, careless, or crass.

Time to level the playing field. Would an atomic blast suit you, Logan? Something from your generation?

“Good. If you make it back soon you can help us decide who to send.”

The push has its intended effect. Logan’s eyebrow cocks like the hammer of a long-barreled .44. 

“I brought you those plans.”

My tone stays light as I sink into my chair. “And while I appreciate your loyalty to the only force in the Commonwealth with the skills and resources to build a signal interceptor, we need to be realistic about who uses it.”

“You’re sending me.”

“Am I?” There is no rising inflection. The words are sniper rounds squeezed off slow.

A sharp double rap, Kells’ signature knock, interrupts us. His arrival is convenient just now and I waste no time telling him to enter, nor dismissing Logan once he does. With both of us watching, she is even forced to salute on the way out, although her eyes gleam with left-unsaid.

Kells looks after her, displaying no emotion at all, before getting to the matter at hand.


End file.
